Prince Harry went skydiving near Toronto on Friday, but the daredevil move wasn’t just for fun. The UK’s newest royal return took the jump to raise funds for two organizations that support Canadian veterans: the Sunnybrook Veterans Centre and the True Patriot Love Foundation. He also did it to fulfill a promise to a decorated centenarian he met last year.
CTV reports that the youngest son of King Charles III met 102-year-old Ed Marshall at the Sunnybrook Hospitals Veterans Centre in Toronto last November. Marshall, a former military paratrooper who celebrated his 100th birthday with a skydiving trip, says he told Prince Harry “I was planning on jumping again and he said, ‘well I’ll join you,’ so I took him up on that.”
Veteran Ed Marshall on November 11 2024.
Richard Lautens/Getty Images
When the Duke of Sussex returned to fulfill his promise Friday, Marshall—with much regret—remained on the plane as the royal made the leap. A medical evaluation before the jump determined that the veteran, who will turn 103 this year, couldn’t safely skydive, so his grandson, Bailey, took the dive with Harry in his place.
“He was devastated that he couldn’t jump, but it was great to have him in the back [of the plane]” Harry told the CTV. “They did put a parachute on him. We did think that he was probably going to jump by himself—glad he didn’t and he’s still here! And he’s going to be 103 in a few months’ time.”
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex in Vancouver, British Columbia on February 09, 2025.
Karwai Tang
Once safely on the ground, Harry was spotted making a call to wife Meghan Markle, who remained at their new home in England. And how has his return to his home country been so far? “It’s been great,” he said Friday. “It’s been great to be back on British soil. The kids are happy in school and it gives me a chance to be able to really focus on the Invictus Games in Birmingham in July next year.”
When asked if the duchess was supportive of his decision to to take the jump, Harry replied, “I didn’t have to convince her, but she was relieved once we were down. It took quite a while to get up, so I think she was like, ‘Are they down yet? Are they down yet?’”
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex speaks onstage during the Clinton Global Initiative 2026 Annual Meeting on September 23, 2026.
JP Yim/Getty Images
This skydive capped off a week of public engagements in North America. Days earlier, in New York, the Duke of Sussex had spoken at the annual Clinton Global Initiative conference, delivering a speech on the risks that artificial intelligence and social media pose to minors like his own children. “I come to this as a father, one who has shared countless conversations with other parents as they mourned the loss of their children to recklessly built technology,” he began, before a technical glitch with the teleprompter forced a 40-minute pause in his speech.
It was a predicament he defused with his typical humor. When he returned to the stage once the teleprompter was fixed, he said “AI got into my speech, so I was asked to come out and finish it,” per CNN. “Interesting to see what it was so concerned about in part two.”
Originally published by Vanity Fair Spain
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